Blank Realm @ The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, 28 Sep

“Thanks for coming out on a Monday night.” Singer/drummer Daniel Spencer smiles bashfully, staring at his fingers before counting the band in. Suddenly we’re blown away by white-hot sears of fuzzy oblivion, bass’n’drums clanking manically while the sound swiftly absorbs first the attention, then the adulation of all present. Brisbane's Blank Realm have previously been referred to as the greatest live band in Australia (to complete the quote: “...scratch that, the world”), so our hopes were pretty high in advance. We never expected this.

Every song is a breathless mess of nervous energy, deeply-wracked noise and hook-drenched pulses. Songs duck and dive on twitching, post-punk rhythms, gathering volume and sewing it into tension, rendering frantic the sweeter melodies of Reach You On The Phone and River Of Longing. The band are raw and untamed, with the most glorious affirmation of this coming from Daniel’s sub-disco primitivism: instrumental sections gather pace as he loses himself to the rush, caring little for the pesky precision of timekeeping and simply surrendering to thrashing, flailing noise. Meanwhile Luke Walsh’s effervescent axework projects galaxies onto the walls of The Hug & Pint, all the while playing as though the ceiling is slowly melting on top of him. It’s simply glorious.

Go Easy’s gnarled, Royal Trux-esque psych sees keytar player Sarah Spencer take over kit duties, while Daniel stands before us, dancing with the unrestrained joy of an awkward child who has just discovered the pleasure that lurks within sashaying rhythm. It feels like we should be thanking him.